Real People: Personal Identity without Thought Experiments

by Kathleen V. Wilkes

This book explores the scope and limits of the concept of a person. Questioning the methodology of thought-experimentation, Wilkes argues that such experimentation engenders inconclusive and unconvincing results, and that truth is anyway stranger than fiction. She then examines an assortment
of real-life conditions, including fantasy, insanity and dementia, dissociated states, and split brains; questions the idea that people have some special kind of unity and continuity of consciousness; and looks at the views of the person as found in Homer, Aristotle, the post-Cartesians, and
contemporary cognitive science.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: I read the first chapter thoroughly but only skimmed the rest of this book.

Wilkes provides her own interpretation of the personal identity debate, few points of which are helpful or instructive.